


In the Service of Gods and Kings

by MildredJosephine



Category: Thor (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 03:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4506282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredJosephine/pseuds/MildredJosephine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "In the Service of Liars and Killers." Sometimes happily ever after doesn't last very long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Service of Gods and Kings

Every day he wanted to tell her.

Every day he didn’t was another betrayal.

Darcy had described this phenomena once. She said that it was better to handle a situation early. The longer you wait, the more awkward it becomes.

If any situation could be called awkward, telling his wife that her husband, whom she thought to be dead, had been alive for several months and posing as her father-in-law would certainly register the scales.

Darcy had once told him that for being as intelligent he was, he chose not to think a lot of the time. She had made for a perceptive mortal and an even more perceptive goddess. Even _he_ didn’t know how he got himself in these situations.

Frigga had been murdered. Nothing had felt right since. He loved Darcy more intensely than most creatures could fathom; but something in him had shattered with his mother’s death. They had been happy. They had all been so unimaginably happy. And Loki had quite the imagination. Malekith had destroyed what had been the most joyful time in his life. His mother had been preparing to welcome her first grandchild into the world. Instead of remembering Frigga holding their daughter, the image of a heavily pregnant Darcy rushing to his mother’s body as grief and rage tore through her own burned into his mind’s eye.

And Odin. Loki snarled to himself in thinking of the his father. The king had lost his mind, perhaps even more than Loki had. Attacking his own sons as he and Thor fought desperately to end Malekith. Putting Darcy under guard and unable to reach them. She had gone into labor as the Convergence had reached its peak. Even in her contractions, she had managed to slow the flow of time enough to give them an edge over Malekith, and defeat the elves once and for all. Her bravery had been met with the false news of his death.

So blind had he been in his rage, he had not even considered her when he allowed Thor to deliver news of his death to Odin. When he entrapped and hid his father in the darkest prison they had. All that had mattered was revenge against Odin for putting them all in danger. He had to be punished. _Someone_ had to be punished. Odin made as good a candidate as anyone.For denying Thor and Jane’s happiness. For all but imprisoning Darcy during the siege. Most of all, for allowing his mother to die.  For the death of Malekith had done little to satisfy Loki’s need for destruction in the wake of the war. Someone had to pay for the injustice of it all.

And what of his sins?

Thor was finally under the impression the All-father approved of his relationship with Jane, and so he ran to his precious Earth to heal. All Loki had left to do was face his wife, who once again was left to pick up the pieces of his rage and thoughtlessness.

She had named her Astrid. Darcy had mentioned the name once, but it had been on a long list of possibilities. It fit his daughter well.

As far as Darcy could tell, she was raising her newborn infant as a widow. She hadn’t been eating. She only slept when she passed out in exhaustion. Her once pleasant curves had straightened into a dangerously thin frame. Even when she smiled down at their daughter, the tide of tears streaming over the dark circles under her eyes could not be stemmed. He had held his daughter countless times. Posing as a maid, he had done all he could to aid her, appearing as himself only to his daughter, who was just beginning to smile at him. He wanted to touch her as her husband, not a servant. He wanted to remove her anguish from her. But what should she rather have? A dead husband for whom she still held the illusion was honorable? Or a living husband that was so selfish, that he would thoughtlessly let her believe he was dead for his own revenge? This was the question he asked himself by the minute, and he had run out of time to answer it long ago.

His sins were dark, indeed. Even he was impressed at the measure of his cowardice.

Darcy was his closest confidant. The one who would normally advise him on this situation. He wanted to tell her that he had made a mistake. He wanted to release Odin. He wasn’t even angry anymore. His father had been wrong in his actions, but Frigga’s death had broken the king as much as it had broken Loki himself. He could see that now. Even as his father handled his imprisonment with the utmost grace of a king, he gently tried to reason with Loki. Trying to help him own his actions and set it right.

_Darcy will be angry, but she will forgive you. If you tell her now._

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where I'm going with this. Just a heads up. I don't know if I will be able to finish it, or how long it will be, or anything, ha ha. This just kind of got in my head. Hope you enjoy it.
> 
> If I do take this further, I will probably retcon a few things from my original story to get it to match up with canon that has been released. I'm not going to go back and change them, but I will specify differences. Things I retcon will be changed here in the notes of the first chapter.
> 
> Ret-conned:
> 
> -Thor and Jane didn't get married in the epilogue of the previous story.  
> -One of the Companion Pieces where Darcy went into labor didn't take place.


End file.
